Know What Matters. Do It Daily. Repeat.

Do you know what really matters in your writing life? What those key activities are that will actually move the needle in the direction of your dreams?

Or are you just doing random stuff here and there, hoping you’ll eventually get where you want to go?

I totally feel you if you’re still not sure what actually matters. For a long time, I didn’t know either. So I spent my day focused on stuff like interacting with people on Facebook and writing blog posts without a call to action and working on client stories, but rarely my own.

And I’d make excuses, like, client stuff is what really matters, my stuff will have to wait, or I’d avoid doing the writing by getting buried in Facebook posts.

Operating from that place every day—that place of being busy but not actually getting anything that matters done—is a recipe for staying stuck and stagnant.

Someone once said that some people live 90 years, and other people live one year 90 times. Think about that one.

That quote really woke me up and made me see that I’d been living the same year over and over again where my writing was concerned. Yes, I was working on stuff and even making some progress, but for years I was in pretty much the same place every December that I’d been in January.

I felt stuck and stagnant. I couldn’t understand how I’d been at this for so long and yet had made so little progress (or so it seemed to me, others would likely disagree). But then I finally figured it out.

I hadn’t been doing what really mattered. 

Now what really matters is subjective and based on the person in question. So what matters for you may not matter for me, and vice versa.

When you’re figuring out what matters, don’t base it on what you think should matter or what others tell you matters, base it on what actually does matter, to you.

Example, if you’re fine with your body and exercise doesn’t matter to you, then don’t do it. Just because others say exercise matters or you think it should matter to you (even though it doesn’t), doesn’t meant it actually matters. It’s about what matters to you.

If writing matters to you, then that’s (one of) the things you should be focusing on daily. Anything worth doing—anything that matters—is worth doing daily. 

Once I actually figured out what mattered to me and what moves the needle in my writing life and business, that’s the stuff I committed to doing daily, first things first. That includes things like, mindset work and journaling, writing a blog post, working on my fiction (and other writing projects), tracking my book sales numbers and income, and doing visibility and promotional activities.

That is the stuff that moves the needle for me. When I’m not doing that stuff every day—and especially when I’m not doing my fiction and writing projects daily—everything else falls apart in my life. Nothing goes right. I’m resentful of everything.

But when I do what matters and do it daily, that’s when everything in my life flows and happens with ease. I feel great and I’m happy. Best of all, I’m making consistent progress and actually finishing what I start.

And that’s why you have to do what matters and do it daily.

How do you know what matters? Journal on it. Ask yourself, “what activities, if I did them daily, would totally transform my life a year from now?” Commit to doing those activities every day. Report back. 

Write with a purpose, live with intention,

#DailyThinkDifferent #DreamLifeOrBust

P.S. The Bestselling Author Mastermind is opening its doors to new members soon. BAM is a high-level community and mentorship for writers who want to develop the habits, consistency, follow-through and mindset of a bestselling author. Get on the waitlist here to be the first to know when the doors are open AND to get access to a waitlist-only bonus.